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Hatred, Dehumanization, and the Church | Holy Disruption
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April 12, 2026 | Brew City Church | Randy Knie
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Welcome to the Brew City Church Podcast. We are a Christian church following in the way of Jesus and located in the heart of downtown Milwaukee. We're glad you've joined us and we hope you enjoy this week's message. We have been in the Book of Acts for several months now, and we're diving back in. We took a little break last week, but we're diving back in this morning. Now, we, when we talk about the Book of Acts or when we talk about most any book of the Bible, it's a very familiar thing and a familiar place for many of us. Many of us who are here grew up doing just this thing, going to church and orienting ourselves around the Scriptures. Now, when I was growing up and in that world of orienting my life around the Scriptures and informing my, I. I was formed and shaped and discipled and programmed in many ways by the Scriptures and by our interpretations of the Scriptures and when I say our, I mean my Christian subculture, our people. And as I was growing up and thinking about the Bible and memorizing the Bible and taking it all in in really wonderful ways, I saw the Bible in a certain way. And maybe the primary way I saw the Bible personally was that the Bible was just absolutely perfect. And I obviously that part of that perfect means like inerrant, you know, and I'm not going to go into that doctrine why I don't believe it anymore, all that stuff. But when I say perfect, I mean all the stories and everything in the Bible was actually like absolutely perfect, just the way it should have been, just the way it was intended. There was nothing out of sorts in any of these stories in the Bible. Do you know what I'm talking about? This kind of way of thinking about and looking at the Bible, the stories in it was, every single bit of it was constructive and useful for teaching and rebuking and exhorting and bringing us into what it meant to be the people of God. It was just clear and tidy and precise in exactly the way God intended it to be. Now, for some of you, if you're new around here, maybe that's. You're like, duh, that's the Bible. Of course it's exactly as you're describing, Randy. In the years since, that was a majority of my life, not even maybe at this point, I'm old enough to not have that be a majority anymore, but a long time, substantial amount of my life, I saw the Bible as perfect, as neat, tidy, clear, clean, precise, exactly the way that God wanted to be. And these stories were all There to teach us. Right? And now I still see the Bible very similar to that, but not so completely. I see the Bible is being quite. There they are that little cute voice down here. They're there. Just kidding. It probably wasn't Jaden. They're having fun. I hope we can hear them. Where was I? Oh, so now I see the Bible as really beautiful and inspired and miraculous and really important and still I want to shape and form my life around it and be transformed by it. But there's a lot of messiness in the Bible. And there's a lot of messiness that isn't like super redemptive. And by that I mean there's some messiness in the Bible that's just like there's problems in the Bible. Like, I remember. I don't know if you can remember this, but I remember what it felt like. I can totally remember what it felt like when my first person came up to me and was like, what about this in the Bible? And I can't even remember what that person kind of tried to pick apart or show me there was a contradiction or there's a problem or there was really ugly stuff in the Bible. And I remember that feeling of being like, what? You must think that because you don't believe because the Bible doesn't have that stuff in it. I think it wasn't even that I could explain it away perfectly. It was that I didn't even see it because I was programmed and discipled and taught by people who couldn't see it. It felt like. It felt like we as a people, my people when I was growing up were just programmed to just look past that stuff and not even. Not even recognize it. Like an optical illusion. It's just not there. And then once I did see it, and once all those annoying atheists and, you know, antagonistic people to the faith would point out these contradictions or these problems and issues in the Bible. Then I began doing. What's the next step is explaining it away, right? There's obviously a reason why this is in the Bible. But now with a lot of these stories, I have this perspective where I actually thank God the Bible isn't clean and neat and perfect and tidy. I am actually really super thankful. I think it's one of the coolest things about the Bible is that it's very, very human. It's very messy. There are messy kind of ugly stories in the Bible. And I want to tell you that actually gives me great comfort because I've learned more from those parts of the Bible. Than I have some of the neat and tidy and perfect and precise parts of the Bible. Do you know what I'm talking about? Because that messiness, that hu. Hu. Humanness of the Bible actually helps me relate to it more because life is messy and human and not perfect. Do you know what I'm talking about? This morning we're going to dive into a story that's one of those messy and untidy, imperfect stories that I never even realized you could. That this stuff was in the story. I looked right past it, didn't see it. And as a matter of fact, the Bible even kind of the story itself kind of glosses over the issue. We're not going to do that this morning. We're going to dive into this messy part of the story. This series on the Book of Acts we've called Holy Disruption. And this morning is kind of where the story begins. The Spirit of God really does some disruptive work. The story begins to change. This is a kind of a pivot point in the Book of Acts. Here things are going to start changing and changing quickly. And they begin really with the story and kind of with the story that Randy Schmore told last week as well. But let's jump in. This is Acts 6. We're just looking at seven verses this morning, Acts 6. In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Hellenistic Jews among them complained about the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So that's what there's so much there in the first verse. So the twelve gathered all the disciples together and said it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the Word in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the Word. This proposal pleased the whole group, so they chose Stephen, a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Also Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicholas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. Now here's just a little fun Bible geeky thing, if anyone remembers, and I think it's Revelation 2, when Jesus is addressing the seven churches. And in two of them, I believe he says, here, here's something I hold against you. You. You practice and walk in the way of the nicolations. This is. Many scholars think this is who that came from. Actually this Nicholas from Antioch. They presented these men to the apostles who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread, the numbers of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. Now that's interesting. So let me just break this text down for you if you. If you'll let me. Let's just kind of. There's only seven verses here, but there's a lot here that I want to point. Point us to and just kind of come to a common understanding. So in first, the first thing, first of all, where this lands, this is. We're in Acts 6. And so many of us would logically think this is kind of early in the church, early church movement. This is a couple months in. It feels like. It feels like this story is being told sequentially. In reality, many scholars think that this story, Acts 6 here, probably happened about six years after Pentecost. Six years. In other words, this story of Acts is not this, like, journalistic account telling the exact precise timeline. It's pulling stories. Luke has an agenda as he's telling us the story of Acts. He wants to get across some things, and he's telling intentional stories to tell that story. But then the first question is, is who are these Hellenistic widows that are. That Luke's talking about that are at the center of this story? The Hellenistic Jews, we see Hebraic Jews and Hellenistic Jews. And by the way, the reason that they're talking about these Jewish people so much is because Christianity, the followers of Jesus at this point are still. Still a Jewish group. The church is a Jewish sect still at this point. There are no Gentiles in it. Now, that makes things really clean and nice and neat and tidy. But even within that reality of it being a Jewish group, a Jewish sect, there's still differences in hierarchies. See, there's within Jerusalem, among the Jewish people in Jerusalem, there's Hebraic Jews and Hellenistic Jews. And the way that you can kind of think of that is Hellenistic. If you know the word, it just means Greek. But these were not people from Greece. They were likely people, scholars tell us, from the Diaspora, which means that Jewish people who. They went away and they settled in different areas, not in Jerusalem. And they called them Hellenistic Jews because they were more familiar with and probably spoke the Greek language. But the Hebraic Jews spoke Aramaic, which in those days was just known as Hebrew. So they speak a different language. These are, these Hellenistic Jewish people have relocated here into Jerusalem from the Diaspora from areas and regions that are way more Greek and influenced than Israelite or Hebrew. And what that means is that they probably had different ideas and different cultures and they wore different things and they spoke a different language. And what that also meant is that there's differences. And those differences, often when human beings are being human beings, we actually choose to fixate on those differences and separate because of those differences and form hierarchies because of those differences. You know what I'm talking about. Does it sound at all familiar to the world we live in? See, these Hellenistic Jews would move in. Oftentimes some of these Hellenistic widows, when they were retired, getting to retirement age, they were getting close to dying, they would move to Jerusalem to be closer to this holy city. But what that meant is that they were newcomers to this really important city. And how do human beings treat newcomers? Not awesome, right? I mean, just look at the news, look at our culture. How do human beings treat newcomers who maybe speak a different language, have different customs, don't understand everything perfectly? And what it seems like is happening here in the church in Jerusalem is that these Hebrew Christians think that these Hellenistic Christians are less than, don't deserve all the privileges and status that comes with being part of the church and the community. We're going to go into that later. But that's what's happening here between these Hebraic Jews and the Hellenistic Jews and the passing over of these widows. Next we see, as we're just breaking this down, we see just. I'm going to give you a couple of Bible geeky tidbits that I think are interesting and I don't really care if you think they're interesting or not. It's just fun for me to say so. In verse 2, it says, so the twelve gathered all the disciples and said, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is, interestingly to me, the only time in the book of Acts that the disciples are referred to as the 12. It's the first and last time. And also I'm highlighting this, the 12 here because up until this point in the book of Acts, the leadership in the church has been very centralized. Right? We've heard of Peter all the time and John quite a bit. The leadership is centered around the 12 apostles, the 12 disciples. And that's about to change. Things are going to start getting really exciting, like crazy and wild and exciting. And that also means that the influence and hierarchy in leadership in the church is going to get decentralized. Could be a coincidence, I don't know. Next, in verse 2, it says the 12 gathered all the disciples and said it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God. In order to wait on tables. Now, let me just a moment. I was a server when I was in my early to mid-20s, and I've had an issue with the disciples having an issue with waiting on tables. Being a server is a complex, really rough job that I'll bet you any money many of us couldn't do. I'll bet the disciples couldn't do it for Carnell. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. They kind of. What's ironic about them saying, hey, it wouldn't be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word and evangelism and the mission of the Gospel, to wait on tables. The irony is that these seven, the seven men that we're about to see, who they appointed to wait on the tables, not all of them followed the rules. See, we know this because all you got to do is keep reading the narrative in just the next chapter. Actually in this chapter, and then in a couple more chapters, two of these seven men who were chosen do a lot more than just wait on tables. They start becoming some of the primary evangelists and primary people who bring the gospel to people who you would never have imagined. What I'm trying to point out is when you open leadership in the church up to people who might not have access to it, miraculous things start happening. When you bring people into leadership in the church who haven't been, who in the past who thought there was no way for me to be a leader in the church? Man, the spirit of God does some amazing things when that happens, and we're just gonna keep reading, but that's not today's story. Next, it talks about these seven. It says, hey, it would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. We forgive you, divine disciples. It's okay, brothers and sisters, choose seven from men from among you who are known to be full of the spirit of wisdom. We'll turn responsibility over to them. We'll give our attention to prayer in the ministry of the Word. And so they picked these men. Now, an interesting thing about these seven men who were chosen, first of all, it's just. Let's just notice they were seven men. But thankfully, most of the church, it seems like, didn't really think that that was prescriptive, that that was descriptive, because just later in the book of Acts, we're going to see what woman doing some profound and amazing things. This is just a tidbit for you, but let's just acknowledge that these seven were all men. But also there's something interesting about these seven that were chosen. See, getting back into the, into the story, there's some people who are being neglected in the church and being neglected in really important, essential, profound ways. And it's a marginalized people group who are being neglected. And when the disciples. It's brought to the disciples attention. First of all, here's a possibility of what they could have done, which would be done in many churches today. A marginalized people group steps forward and says, hey, we kind of feel like we're being pushed off to the margins here. We kind of feel like we're being forgotten. Just, look, there's none of us in leadership and we're not allowed to do this thing. And we've been told by certain people in the church, we can't even take communion. Right? You know what would happen in many churches, first of all, they'd be like, oh, I think this is just a misunderstanding. How many marginalized people have heard those words? Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I get it. I get why you would think that it's not what we're doing, right? That would be. We get defensive, we gaslight, we excuse, right? You don't see the disciples doing that. You see them taking this issue seriously, first of all, so good on you. 12 disciples. Also. What's also even more interesting to me is the fact that we know that these seven men who were chosen and to take the lead and to take authority in this situation were Hellenists. Every single one of them, all seven, we know this because of their names. They're all Hellenistic names. They're not Jewish Hebrew names. So another thing that I think would have happened if this story had happened in the modern day church. Not that anything like this would ever happen in the modern day church, right? But if a marginalized people group brought some issues to people in power in the church, and we said, okay, we're gonna appoint a team of leaders to address this. You know what kind of people would be appointed to address this and to lead people like me. Like people like us, not the marginalized folks. Here's what would have probably happened, and I know this is cynical, it's also just based on experience, is maybe from that marginalized people group who were bringing the issue, you would maybe have one or two token representatives from that group in that. In that group of seven leaders. Can I be like, Right, you'd probably. Maybe if there was like a progressive ish leader in charge of the deal, it'd be like, at least to make it look good, we gotta Have a few people from that community. I know, wink and nod, right? Instead, the disciples appoint seven. All seven people. Seven out of seven are Hellenists. They're from this marginalized people group. I think we have things to learn from the story now. Last thing that I think is just one of those other Bible geeky tidbits that I would just want to tell you because it's fun to me. Verse 7, the priests, they're kind of interesting. Little add in there, right? So the word of God spread. Luke said, he's always giving us these progress reports on the church. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith. Now that is interesting, see, because we've seen priests so far in the Book of Acts in this narrative, but it's not like this. Randy Shmore two weeks ago took us through Acts 5. And in it was we saw the chief priests. For several chapters now for several stories in the Book of Acts, the chief priests have been on the scene, but not in the greatest way possible, like actually trying to silence the leaders of the church and opposing the leaders of the church and persecuting the leaders of the church, trying to snuff out this Jesus movement from within Judaism. But here it says that a great number of priests joined the church in these days. Now a quick note about these priests, the chief priests who were in the Sanhedrin, like our congress and our, you know, think the leadership, the board of directors for the Southern Baptist Convention, the biggest Protestant denomination in North America, think like that for the Sanhedrin. That is not what these priests that Luke is referring to here are. Josephus. There's a historian who we get a vast majority of our history and understanding of what Jewish, what Jewish life and culture and society was like in this time. And his name is Josephus. And Josephus tells us that there were up to 7,000 priests in Jerusalem at this moment, this period in time. Up to 7,000, as a matter of fact. Zachariah of Zachariah and Elizabeth, John the Baptist, father, the whole deal. He was probably one of those 7,000. Like not a chief priest, but one of the several thousand really normal ones. And Josephus actually tells us that there were so many and there was this hierarchy within the priesthood that many of the chief priests and the important people would kind of just dump on the lower level priests to the point where many of these 7,000 priests lived in poverty and some of them actually died of starvation because they had nothing. But this group of marginalized priests and People who were being pushed out of the center and out of power and living in poverty saw something in this Jesus community. Interesting. So that's as far as I want to dive in and dive in deep and get this group understanding. Now we're to the point in the sermon in the morning. I want to ask, what do we have to learn from this story? See, I think this story actually the spirit wants to hold it up as a mirror for us because there's this simple dynamic that I think is happening here. It's a dynamic that I would never have seen growing up. When engaging with this story, I never saw it. But now I read this story and I'm like, I just need to get through verse one to see there's something really ugly happening here. And that ugliness that's happening here in the story is the church incubating and fostering and cultivating hatred and dehumanization. Hatred and dehumanization. See, this story, in one sentence tells us so much that when the daily distribution of food was happening. And what that is pointing to is this reality that from a couple of chapters ago that remember when it said that people were selling like the wealthy people in the community were selling sometimes property, some of their property and some of all of it. And then we had that really messy story in Acts 8. 5, but they were selling their property for the sake of those who were needy among them. This is exactly what it's talking about. And that stuff's playing out. Maybe even years later, they're still practicing this radical generosity where wealthy people within the Christian community, within the church that sold their stuff to provide for the people who have nothing, like widows. Widows in this culture were one of the most, if not the most marginalized, forgotten people groups in their culture. The most dangerous thing you could be in this culture would be to be a widow without any family to take care of you. You're left exposed. That's the exact kind of people that these collections were taken for. And it says that these collections didn't even make it to the most needy among them, the Hellenistic widows who were not speaking the language of the privileged, who were not feeling like they were part of the accepted group, who were not part of the in group, who were the people of God who spoke the language of the Bible. Are you with me? Do you hear what I'm talking about here in the hatred and dehumanization I'm talking about is to be able to look at a group of widows and say, they don't deserve to eat today. That's what they're doing here. They're saying maybe even there's some conversation among people who are distributing the tithes and offerings and the generosity of the wealthy donors is to say, maybe there's even some wealthy donors who said, don't you dare take the profits that I made from my property and give it to those dirty, filthy Hellenistic people. Right? Don't you dare. I didn't sell everything that I worked hard for, that my parents worked hard for, that my people worked hard for, in order to give my money to those filthy, godforsaken people. Those people who don't even aren't even part. Like, see, the scriptures even tell me that they might have said to hate them. Like the scriptures tell me to not associate with people who are not part of the covenant people. These are not descendants of Abraham. You see, people all throughout the ages of the church have been using Bible verses to justify their hatred. But just like today, when that happens, I'm guessing these Hebraic Jewish Christians didn't learn that hatred from the Bible. They brought their hatred in to their understanding of the Bible. So you can. You can pick and choose verses to hate to justify your hatred. It still happens today. But they're dehumanizing these Hellenistic widows and their hatred and is getting them to see them as subhuman to the point where when a person's at their most vulnerable state, they're saying, you don't deserve to even just to eat in this community. That is hatred and dehumanization to the nth degree, friends. And I want to just ask. As I said, I think this story is a mirror for us. Can I just ask a really dumb, simple question? Do we do this in the church today? Do we do this in our world today? Let me just ask. And here I'd love to hear from just a couple of you. How do we do this in the church today? Who in our world? In the church and in our world, who are targets of hatred and dehumanization? Can I ask any thoughts? Forest? Oh, there's a hand up. Hey, what you got? Trans people. Okay. Okay. Trans people. Thank you. Anyone else? It's not a trick question, Antonio. Jewish people. Okay. Yes. Classism, you said, Bill. Classism. Yep. Okay. Yes. LGBTQ people. Thank you. Divorced people. Homeless. Yes. Say that again. Immigrants. Immigrant community. We could go. We could sit here for a long time. Thank you for jumping in. Let's just. Let me just kind of hone in on a couple of people, especially in the church people groups that we just are Programmed to exclude, to hate, to see as less than to marginalize. Heard a friend say it just a moment ago. The LGBTQ community, the queer community. If you were here during summer, we had several friends tell us their story of what it was like to be Christian and be gay. The rejection that they faced growing up loving Jesus but wanting to be themselves and knowing what was true about themselves and hating what was true about themselves. Hating themselves because of what they had been told in the church, what they had been told by their families, what they've been told by the people who were serving communion, who were teaching them the Bible, is that they are sinful and they have something wrong with them and they don't belong. They can't partake in things like communion. They can't partake in things like leadership. Right? Story after story. I've been a pastor for about 20 years now. I've heard story after story after story after story. I could keep going for the rest of my sermon stories of hatred and marginalization just because they were queer. Let's think about women in the church for a moment. If you're a woman in the church, growing up in the church, maybe you've kind of. Maybe it wasn't even told to you. Maybe you were part of a tradition where it was actively told to you that this was ordained by God. But also, many of us grew up in traditions where this was just unspoken, an unspoken reality. And that is, if you're a woman, the things that you can aspire to, the things that, like, here's what you can do to lead in the church. Women's ministry and children's ministry. Not that there's anything wrong with women's ministry and children's ministry. Those two are both beautiful things for us to do and to steward and to care for in the church. But see, if that's the ceiling, that's as far as you can go. And you see all the other people around you leading and preaching and teaching and doing all sorts of amazing things and speaking into microphones and doing all those things, and you can't, because you don't have a penis. That's dehumanization. I think that's saying you, because of just who you are, are less than. Less qualified, less equipped, less gifted. God sees you differently. Like it or not, whether we've been conditioned to it and to be okay with it, that's dehumanization. We mentioned the trans community. Is there a people group in our culture, in our culture and in the church, who's more marginalized and dehumanized than the trans community. Now I know it's dangerous to talk about the trans community in churches where everyone gets a little like, ooh, what's the pastor gonna say. When there's new people in our church and they want to get together with me as a pastor to hear about where we are as a church and what we believe and where we like what we're about, what our vision is. And they want me to get to know them. I love that stuff. But what happens recently since we've become an inclusive church is as part of that conversation, I'll sit down with them, we'll have a great conversation and I just know I'm going to tell them this. It's just like, hey, I just want you to know, in case you don't, we are an inclusive church to the queer community. I used to have to do the opposite. I used to have to get together with new people and say, hey, just so you know, we're, we're non affirming and here's what that means. But now I say, hey, we're an inclusive church to the queer community. And here's a response that I get. I want to say too often because they'll say, oh, oh, that's, that's actually, you know, like I'm, I'm, I. Or we are mostly good with that. I don't really know what I think about it, but I've, my, my thoughts are kind of changing a little bit. I'm okay with that. But. Here's the but. But tell me what you guys think about the trans community, because I got strong feelings about that. I've heard that numerous times. I'm okay with the gay stuff, I'm okay with the sexuality stuff, but tell me about the trans community, because that I'm not okay with. You see, friends, it's almost as if we just have this innate need to scapegoat some community, right? Like we've moved on now from, maybe some of us have moved on from gay and lesbian people, but now our target is just like, oh, I've got an arrow here and it needs to be shut. Trans community, where are you? Boosh. It's just like we have this need to have a community to scapegoat, to make ourselves feel better about ourselves. I don't even have to go much further into it than to tell you that is hatred and dehumanization and it is rampant in the church just like the rest of our culture and society. Can I give you just a universal one? Here's the last example. And I promise you, this is as universal as it gets. People that we love to hate and dehumanize our political opponents. Now is when everyone needs to take a deep breath and listen. I think. See, because we are being programmed all the time, every single day by these devices we hold in our. In our hands or on the screens that we watch to hate and dehumanize people because they disagree with us politically. We are being programmed by the algorithms of big tech because big tech knows it makes money when we scroll. And the reason that we scroll, the primary reason that we scroll, you know what it is? Rage. Anger. The angrier you get, the more rage you're filled with, the more addicted to that scrolling little thing that we do you get. And the thing that gets us more than anything are when we see human beings that we think are disgusting on these little short films saying really disgusting things. And then we go and on to the next one. Did you see this? Did you see what they said? Anybody done that? Oh, save. I can't wait to show my wife this. Right. I want to tell you as we do that, friends, we're being programmed. We're being discipled by the politicians and leaders in our country and by big tech who are trying to program our whole lives. I know this sounds cynical, but it's just kind of true. We're trying to program our whole lives to dehumanize into, hate somebody who wears a red hat that says make America great again, Or they're trying to get us to dehumanize and hate someone who we think is a woke liberal. I have a family member who told me part of the reason he lost his job was because he was seen as a woke liberal. This man is conservative. But see, we have this witch hunt that happens in our world because people who we don't agree with, we can't even fathom the idea of listening to them besides listening to this short video that triggers our rage meter and gets us to dehumanize them. And we all do it because we're bombarded by it. The algorithms are getting us to. It's like a vortex sucking us in. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? And yes, friends, yes, because I know that there are some of you, and I'm glad that there are some of you who are thinking, yeah, but injustice is real and oppression is real. We were just talking about it literally, and I know it. And I care about injustice and I care about. And I want to stand against oppression. I preach a lot about it. Like, stick around. I preach a lot about, like, a lot, a lot too much for a lot of people. But that doesn't change this. That actually makes it where we feel justified in our hatred now, because I and my people are so in the right, and this is so obviously ugly and disgusting. You know, what's the next step? Those people are ugly and disgusting, and I don't want to be a part of a church with those people are a part of. And I think this text, friends, is calling to us and speaking to us and saying, what if we could just see one another differently? We love to scapegoat the trans community because we see political commercials scapegoating the trans community. It scores political points. Like, I've literally talked to political operatives who say, there is a reason you see all these commercials about the trans community because it works. What if we actually could begin putting down our phones and our devices that are designed to with algorithms to get us to dehumanize and hate human beings who have been created in the image of God and have unsurpassing worth and value? Doesn't mean you have to agree with everything. But I'll bet you know what might happen. There's this one thing that could change the dynamic in the church, in our nation, and in my heart, and that's just simply listening to people. See, I'm convinced everyone who I talk to who scapegoats the trans community, I know I'm focusing and honing in on that, but it's a really easy example here. Pretty much everyone I know who. Who is uncomfortable with the trans community and transgender as a kind of concept and idea. The biggest common denominator is, guess what? They don't know any trans people. They've never talked to a trans person. But they sure have seen a lot of commercials, they sure have heard a lot of talk radio, and they sure have seen a lot of short reels and videos and TV TikToks. See, what if we could actually stop listening to those algorithms designed to get us to dehumanize and hate? And what if we could actually just talk to our neighbors? What would happen? What if we broke out of our echo chambers and protested against the way that this vortex that we're being sucked into to dehumanize and hate people who think differently than us? What would happen? See, the fun thing about this story is that it's messy and it's ugly. Friends, there's no two ways about it. But this question that Beulah has had up there on the screens that I'm finally just getting around to is we have this exciting opportunity to be a part of the church that learns from this story, to be a part of the church who steps out of that vortex that's sucking us into dehumanization and hatred of people because they think differently than us or they are different from us and we actually can listen. We get the chance to change the narrative in the church. Friends, in many ways the church is no better, if not worse than the rest of the world around us. What if we could actually change that narrative? This is where I'm not a very good progressive pastor because I think we actually need to to viciously protect our church from becoming an echo chamber. I think it's important for my kids to be around people who they don't agree with all the time and who doesn't speak the way their parents do all the time. I think it's important for us to humanize people who think differently than us and vote differently than us. We get a chance to tell a different story, friends. But we're not gonna do it if we're sucked into that vortex by our phones all the time telling us who to hate and who to love. See, because it's easy to forget we have this Jesus. We get so self righteous in our hatred. We think that this is justified by Jesus. But see, Jesus said things like this. I know it. I know that this is common knowledge. Love your neighbors and hate your enemies. Duh. See, but here I'm telling you, it's something new. Love your enemies and bless those who persecute you. Because see, that's what God does. You want to be like God, love the people that you love to hate. Actually just love them and see what happens. Yesterday morning I was reading the newspaper. I still read the newspaper. Not. Sorry, I mean, just so many people will never know the joy of a coffee cup. A cup of coffee and a newspaper in the morning. Like what's better? Seriously. However, yesterday, Saturday morning might be my favorite time of the week. Sunday and Saturday morning. Love them both. Reading this newspaper article about the Artemis 2. Anybody get sucked into the footage of the Artemis 2? I mean, it's just incredible stuff, right? I wish I had thought about getting one of their photos up on the screens. Didn't do it. Sorry. But I read this article and I started crying a little bit because. Not because the words, the quotes from the astronauts were so profound, but just because I think this strikes a chord on what our world needs so desperately. Let me read it for you. Over the course of the voyage. Even the seasoned space travelers couldn't contain their excitement at what they were seeing. The journey produced stunning photos, including one of Earth that captured incredible details, such as auroras lighting up the atmosphere. As they looked down on their home planet from great distances, the astronauts got the rare opportunity to experience what has been dubbed the overview effect. The overview effect, a phenomenon caused by seeing the Earth from space that can shift astronauts perspective on life itself. Space philosopher Frank White coined the phrase in 1987, the overview effect. And astronauts for decades have described a similar feeling. The realization that everyone back on Earth shares more in common than we realize. That phenomenon leads to the realization that that borders and divisions aren't visible from space. This is a quote from one of the astronauts. Trust us, you look amazing. Trust us, you look amazing. You look beautiful. He said. And from up here, you also look like one thing. Homo sapiens. All of us, no matter where you're from or what you look like, we're all one people. That's what going into space and seeing the Earth from that perspective does. It just melts away those differences that we love to get sucked up into in the vortex of social media. But friends, we have. We call ourselves followers of Jesus, who every week root ourselves around the Eucharist, around the body and blood of Christ, to remind us of this man who said, you've heard it said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you, love your enemy and bless those who persecute you. See, we Christians, we shouldn't need to go to space, outer space to get the overview effect. We have one who tells us this is the way reality is. I want you to obsess about how you can love people, especially the ones who you find it hardest to love. That's what it looks like to follow Jesus. Friends. The church was struggling with it 2,000 years ago. We're still struggling with it today. But man, Bruce City Church what if we could get this a little bit more right? What if we could just step into those dangerous places of loving people instead of dehumanizing them? What if that's the way of Jesus? Friends, if you're able, would you stand with me as we finish up our time together? Jesus, I need this word so desperately. I need this challenge from you, Holy Spirit. Here, Pause for a second. I know this is weird. I forgot to say something that is super important to me. We're going to finish with this. You know, this disruptive feeling of being checked on, your dehumanization and this, this weird awkwardness of what happens when people who think differently and are different from me happen in the church, this. This reality that we're talking about, these divisions, they didn't happen by accident. Friends here, you know why they happened? Because the spirit of God made them happen. This is not by accident. This awkwardness and plurality and diversity in the church. These are not ugly, bad words. The diversity in the church happened because the Holy Spirit made it happen in Pentecost and is going to continue making it happen in the church, bringing these disruptions and this awkwardness because this is what it looks like to be the people of God. It's because of the Spirit of God, not in spite of it. So, Holy Spirit, we ask, this is, I believe this is your way. This is the way for humanity on planet Earth is to celebrate one another rather than vilify one another, to rehumanize one another rather than dehumanize one another, to obsess about the beauty and goodness in each and every human rather than the ugly nastiness because they don't agree with me or they wear different hats or they vote different from me. Would you forgive me, God? Would you forgive me for being sucked into this vortex of dehumanization and hatred? Would you heal me? Would you heal us, Holy Spirit? Would you help us to see and feel and sense where you're moving, who you're bringing us towards? Would you help us get this right, Jesus, to love our enemies? I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful that we have someone who wants to rescue us from this vortex of death. Come and bring life, Jesus. So we just as a community open to the you, Holy Spirit, we sing to you one more time. Thank you again for being with us. We would love to have you join us if you are ever in the Milwaukee area. And we hope you have a healthy place to gather wherever you are from. Sa.